I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this sort of data. For a guy like Adrian Gonzalez, who batted .338, it entirely makes sense that his batting average was .380 on balls in play. But then again, his career BABiP before last year was .310 and his career batting average was .284. So did his BA go up this year because his BABiP went up, or did his BABiP go up because his BA went up? In other words, did he actually produce a lot more hits due to improved ability and/or hitting in Fenway Park, and hence his BABiP went up, or did he have a lucky year with line drives falling in, and thus his BABip was randomly higher, resulting in a much higher batting average?

Then look at Dexter Fowler, whose BABiP of .354 was nearly 90 points higher than his batting average. What exactly does that mean? I'm guessing it means he got on base a lot on balls put in play, thanks mainly to his speed, but in general made a lot of other outs (mainly strikeouts).

Well, that's a who's who of disappointing players in 2011. Again we have the same question--do they have low BABiPs because they hit poorly this year, or did they have poor years because their BABiPs just happened to be really low?

Here are the highest BABiP values among pitchers who qualified for the ERA title:

Again, one guy sticks out: Josh Tomlin. He is the only one with an ERA+ below 100 and an OPS+ approaching 100. The rest of these guys were all good-to-great pitchers in 2011--and again one wonders whether it was their pitching that led to the low BABiP, or the low BABiP that led to good pitching numbers.